Product Description

For most people giving up the day job and moving to a beautiful area of France and living off the vines is an impossible but delicious dream. In 1990, Patricia Atkinson and her husband decided to sell up in Britain and emigrate to the Dordogne. Their idea was to buy a house with a few vines attached and employ someone to tend to the wine while they earned their living with some financial consultancy work. There followed a series of disasters: the stock market crashed leaving their small holding as their sole source of income; the first red wine harvest turned to vinegar; and Patricia's husband returned to Britain, unable to cope with the stress and never returned. Patricia Atkinson, whose only knowledge of wine up to that moment was 'that it came from a bottle' and who had not a word of French, was left to salvage their life savings form the vineyards. What follows is a remarkable story of struggle and transformation whereby her tiny 4 hectare plot has become a major estate of 21 hectares, where her Clos d'Yvigne wines have won awards and been adopted by wine merchants throughout the world and where she has been hailed as a superstar by UK wine writers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53044 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
This is the latest in what seems like an unending series of accounts of people embarking on a new life, and then deciding to share the experience with the rest of us. The selling point of this offering is that it sets itself amidst the vineyards of Gageac in France, a landscape 'defined by history and culture, the vines and nature'. With the scene set in a 'sun-drenched' courtyard in May 1990, it takes little or no time to bring on all the usual suspects. First we have the English couple - complete with uncontrollable dogs - who have bought a property in France, and then we have the initially wary locals, who don't have a word of English, but who are eventually won over. Throw in a rickety house without electricity, the obligatory slow builders and the discovery that there's more to growing grapes than meets the eye, and you've got the picture. The standard storyline and characters could almost be forgiven if the prose managed to rise above it, but the style of writing here is much too cliched to compensate, and too often reads like a diary. It only takes a few pages to feel overwhelmed by the barrage of sun-dappled walls, balmy days and inky blue nights. Combined with an over-reliance on 'me' and 'I', that feeling soon becomes one of irritation. So, 12 years of viniculture and a thrown-together collection of what can only be described as poorly taken holiday snaps makes us ask the question - does the world really need another such account, especially one as unconvincing as this? No doubt it makes fascinating reading for all those who were involved at the time. For the rest of us, it's worth bearing in mind that it's been done many times before, and it's been done much better. (Kirkus UK)

The Lady
amazing and amusing...unputdownable

Clitheroe Advertiser and Times, 3rd April, 2003
'a story which will inspire many'

Customer Reviews

An Inspirational Story
I agree with most of the above comments on this book. It certainly opened my eyes to the exhaustive process of wine making and French Beaurocracy! I certainly shall not quibble about the price of a good wine again!!!

Patricia is a complete inspiration and a very good writer.

I am so pleased to see (from her website) that she appears to be going from strength to strength.

She describes the people in this book so well that when there is a death, you feel it, and the news that one in particular died made me cry.

I shall certainly be buying her next book.

An admirable woman's story ...
I first came across this lady in the Channel 4 series "A French Affair" in 1994, it being the story of 4 families who relocated to the Dordogne, and was struck dumb with admiration even back then. Just the sheer damned hard work she put in to pull through from horrendous problems to success was quite mind-boggling! I was delighted to spot her book, a few years later, and marvelled anew at her courage and persistance.

To the reviewers who didn't like all the technical stuff about wine - possibly the title should have warned them off! To the ones who said it was yet another book about Brits going to France and living the dream - well, once again, the subject matter is pretty obvious, and if you don't like that kind of thing, then don't read it!! I love all those books, and this is a particularly interesting example, because it goes beyond funny stories about French builders and "fabulous meals wot I have ate".

I think that she writes rather movingly about her marriage. I too felt that she probably could have said a lot more, but was too dignified to wash her dirty linen in public, or to rubbish her husband - who, after all, was only forced to abandon his dream through chronic ill-health. The loss of two very close friends - one horrifically young - is also very touchingly portrayed, so I don't understand at all the accusations of sterility and lack of feeling. The only thing I found slightly irritating was the writing of everything in the present tense, but this did not ulitmately spoil my enjoyment of the book.
I haven't tried the wine, but even it's awful I don't see that that can detract from the quality of the book!!!

Where there's grape there's groans
What a turgid, boring, heartless awful book. Not a single emotion, not a single well written sentence, not a tear shed for a marriage ending nor a dear friend dying young. Just endless anecdotes about pipes in a disjointed poorly remembered and dare I say cynical attempt to cash in further on a little fame. What should have been a compelling moving book about a huge struggle and clearly impressive achievement instead was episodic and dull. I hated every sentence (and I don't like the wine much either).